Bibliography
| Title: Moses in the Jewish Antiquities. Josephus' Political Philosophy Secondary Title: Jewish Institute of Religion Type: Thesis Year: 1992 Abstract: "Scholars have taken insufficient account of the importance of Moses or have underestimated the significance of Moses in the overall scheme of Josephus' historiography. This thesis is an attempt to make good this lack by concentrating on the political philosophy attributed by Josephus to Moses, the lawgiver and philosopher. Chapter I evaluates critically the scholarly literature that deals with the Jewish Antiquities and Josephus' portrait of Moses. Chapter II seeks to demonstrate that the political philosophy of Josephus bears the imprint the Plato and Aristotle. Chapter III seeks to demonstrate that Josephus saw Moses as the spokesman for the aristocratic ideal in the Jewish Antiquities. Chapter IV seeks to demonstrate that the ideal of Aristocracy espoused by Josephus in the Antiquities is the same as that of Theocracy in Against Apion, and that the priestly rule Josephus advocates is one and the same as the rule of an ideal aristocracy. Chapter V seeks to demonstrate that those who challenged Moses' authority were in fact seeking to replace this ideal Aristocracy with oligarchy, democracy, or tyranny. Once Josephus is recognized as a political philosopher as well as an historian, his exposition of Moses' political philosophy is nothing other than his own political philosophy, which was heavily indebted to the political thinking of Plato and Aristotle. It was the failure of the Jewish people to preserve this ideal polity that explained for Josephus the failure of the Jewish people to sustain a state of their own". Keywords: Hellenism, Hellenistic Judaism, Philo |